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Wyoming's War on Wolves
- trhway 9y agoCro-Magnon is a very xenophobic species. It dealt with other Homo species and is now finishing dealing with other intelligent mammals. In this specific case of wolves - livestock argument is pure BS. People around the world have been using shepherd dogs for millennia, while it is somehow not an option for US mid-states. Trump-voter-type in those states needs a way to feel power, even when it is just a cheap surrogate like what AR-15 gives one upon unarmed animal from a safe distance. In addition, working with a shepherd dogs is more like a partnership, a collaboration of intelligent beings which naturally requires some minimal level of intelligence from participants, and that requirement seems to be a pretty big obstacle here for those mid-states ranchers...
- blackguardx 9y agoThe main issue is that the wolves are on public land and the ranchers feel they have the right to any perceived threat to their cattle. In my opinion, ranchers should have no more input that anyone else on public land issues.
- protomyth 9y agoThe wolves don't stay on public land.
- trhway 9y agoespecially when hunter would intentionally place a dead horse right outside : http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/21/nation/la-na-nn-denali-wolf-20120521 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/21/nation/la-na-nn-dena...
- posguy 9y agoWow, what an asshole of a hunter, to bait these wolves out, he kills a horse in a creek, fouling it for the local residents who rely on it & making them boil their water so its drinkable (very expensive to do). Beyond killing the majority of one of the most well known wolf packs out there, this hunter successfully fucked over the locals water supply, and gave the National Parks Service hard data that getting rid of the buffer zone was bad. Idiots like this should be forced to go back and clean up their messes, allowing them to shit all over state & federal lands is ridiculous.
- bsder 9y agoPlease tell me this guy is in jail. In a lot of places, it's illegal to even lure deer with a salt lick. And deer are common and breed like bunnies. And carry nasty diseases.
- protomyth 9y agoThe sad part is that wolves kill and eat the diseased deer for the most part allowing humans to get the health ones (diseased deer = slower). I remember a study done on caribou when the wolf population was devastated in Canada where the caribou started getting more diseases and dying themselves.
- sverige 9y agoSo, no more input than someone living 1500 miles away, when the rancher lives right next to it and have longstanding usage rights there, in many cases? Maybe they should get to have a say in how Central Park or Golden Gate Park are managed. Maybe wolves should be reintroduced to those habitats, for example.
- blackguardx 9y agoI never advocated for reintroduction, but I don't think ranchers should be able to do what they please. Why does it matter how long someone has been using a public good? I don't think it should.
- narrowrail 9y agoSeniority and precedent are legal concepts from English common law. None of us alive had a say in that, but it is the way things work. Private property is a cherished concept in the US (and, especially, the western US).
- sverige 9y agoIndeed, even the right to walk across private property on an established path is an ancient concept in common law. Plus, the American idea was always that the people owned all rights unless explicitly given to the government, which is quite different than the old monarchical idea that rights belonged to the king unless explicitly granted to the people. That idea has been eroded considerably in the last 100 years.
- blackguardx 9y agoThis isn't an argument over private property, though. Bringing that up clouds your argument.
- sverige 9y agoLands are either public or private. The definition of the two and the basis of the attendant rights matters, since inability to agree on those things means no agreement on derivative matters can be reached and therefore further discussion is pointless. Not a popular position on internet forums, I readily concede.
- squozzer 9y agoPersonally I have no opinion on wolves, but I'm a city boy. The notion that "city folk" have any idea how to manage anything out in the wild probably contributes as much to how people in WY and elsewhere perceive the wolf as any damage wolves may cause.
- komali2 9y agoI don't understand - where in the article does it indicate to you that "city folk" are managing wolf populations? And furthermore, if the people managing wolf populations are defined as "city folk," what about this definition makes them ineligible to manage wolf populations?
- narrowrail 9y agoWhen I lived in Idaho, my neighbor found his dead dog draped over his mailbox because it wondered onto another neighbors land that had cattle. The law is on their side, and this issue goes back over 100 years, though the details differ.
- komali2 9y agoThat's an interesting story, but can you clarify why you mentioned it? I don't understand the relation to my question.
- narrowrail 9y agoIt's the type of story that city people (who spend 0.01% of their time in rural areas) seem to be astonished by because their lifestyles are so different. Trying to impose your will on people in an area you've barely lived seems quite arrogant to those that live there 100% of the time.
- komali2 9y agoOh. I hadn't found the story astonishing, sorry. To be honest, I feel like you're the one coming off as arrogant, to suggest that there's some impassible divide between those that live in rural communities, and those that live in cities. I don't believe this is the case.
- Mz 9y agoMultiple scientists have also challenged ideas about wolves’ positive impact on Wyoming ecosystems. In a 2009 study, the ecologists Scott Creel and David Christianson contend that elk’s reduced consumption of willow trees “was more strongly affected by snow conditions than by the presence of wolves.” The scientists Matthew Kauffman, Jedediah Brodie, and Erik Jules also refute the notion that wolves played a central role in helping Yellowstone aspen trees to recover in their 2010 article. That study also concludes that “aspen are not currently recovering in Yellowstone, even in the presence of a large wolf population.” (Other scientists have gone on to disagree with Kauffman, Brodie, and Jules’s findings, publishing scholarly refutations of that study.) Science: A more civil version of the internet refutation "That's just your opinion, man!"
- protomyth 9y agoI'm sympathetic to the ranchers as its costly to lose animals, but in a lot of ways I still think a simple economic solution would have kept this from getting that far. If the wolves are technically owned by the federal government, then they could have paid for each animal the wolves eat (at final market price). Frankly, a Fish & Wildlife person driving out with a check would have solved quite a lot of this at a much cheaper price. The North American wolves are not their European brethren in body count (far from it).
- almog 9y agoThat kind of solution could create a Cobra Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect) where ranchers feed wolves with their stock. I'm surprised that livestock guarding dogs were not mentioned in the article. Some breeds are known to prevent attacks by merely displaying aggressive behavior toward predators without actually harming neither the wolves nor themselves.
- protomyth 9y agoCould, but I doubt it. I can almost see some older milk cows or breeding animals going that way, but there is a bit of difference between the cost of raising cattle and cobras. Raising cows for wolf food has all sorts of side effects that ranchers would understand to be bad.
- mrfusion 9y agoAlpacas are good guard animals I think. Not sure for wolves.
- protomyth 9y agoThe Swiss seem to want llamas[1] because dogs are bad for tourists(?!?). I was taught you bought a donkey[2]. 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX5GvhIF2j4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX5GvhIF2j4 2) https://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/guard-donkeys-ranchers-turn-to-crabby-equines-to-watch-over-livestock/ https://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/guard-don...
- gyrgtyn 9y agoIf this bothers you, one thing you could try is searching "great lakes wolf patrol" and send some of your developer salary their way.
- rch 9y agoSupply Chain info must be on record somewhere - people could just boycott beef from these ranches.
- eugeneionesco 9y agoShame on you, the well-being of humans should be more important than an animal.
- rch 9y agoI think biodiversity is a net positive for humans.
- eugeneionesco 9y agoHow does boiccoting and ruining farmers lives help with biodiversity? How is that net positive for them?
- knowaveragejoe 9y agoThe answer to the first question should be instantly obvious. The second is a little more nuanced, and I'm sure the above person's answer would be a little more abstract.
- __jal 9y agoAn interest in human well-being makes no sense without an interest the environment in which humans live.
- eugeneionesco 9y agoOf course not, "protecting" wolves by boyccoting meat from those farmers does nothing for the environment.
- Falling3 9y agoIn what way does that necessitate a choice between the well- being of a human and a non-human animal? Sounds very much like a false dichotomy.
- douche 9y agoIn the absence of wolves, you get coyotes and coy-dogs, which are as bad, if not worse than wolves, filling that niche. Nasty creatures.
- throwaway2048 9y agoIf you truly think that coyotes and coy-dogs are "as bad or worse" than wolves, in terms of being dangerous to humans, you don't have a clue sorry.
- douche 9y agoNot humans, but they eat every other animal out, decimating the deer, rabbits, turkeys, about anything smaller than moose.
- jboggan 9y agoI know from firsthand experience how the elk and deer herds have been decimated in that region of the country, and in fact have been cut by more than 50% in the region I've hunted over the past decade. This dramatically shortens the season for us and also means we haven't been able to take any females for years now. We've also been tracked and surrounded by them on a few occasions, and I challenge anyone who enjoys watching them on YouTube to feel the same way after you've heard their chorus of howls completely surrounding you in dark timber. I'm talking about deep instinctual fear . . . it's sobering. I think the article does a poor job of describing the hunting process, it's not like you just kill wolves and tell Fish & Game about it later. You have to hunt in season using certain weapons or traps and you have to apply for tags beforehand. The success rate is extremely low, I know the first year it was open in Idaho the projected rate was 20% but the actual rate was 0.3%. Turns out wolves are extremely hard to hunt. Having them off the list is a huge improvement though because the ranchers and hunters are working in cooperation instead of opposition to the authorities. There used to be a real S.S.S. attitude among the old timers (Shoot, Shovel, Shut up), now they are going to be giving good data back to the authorities who will be better able to adjust the numbers in favor of all the species that share the ecosystem. For context, the first wolf killed during the legal season in my area was stuffed and mounted in the local sporting goods store . . . 7 feet nose to tail and probably north of 140#. Not what you want to meet in the woods, and especially not when there are two dozen of them.
- 1_2__3 9y agoSo should we start hunting bears in Yellowstone?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bluGill 9y agoMaybe - what is the situation with bears. Are there too many for the ecosystem or not. This needs to be handle on a case by case basis. Man has greatly changed the ecosystems of the world. (this is ongoing). Some of it has been for the worst, but we have been correcting things too and some of our corrections have gone too far (or perhaps reached an end of their useful life?)
- utefan001 9y agoHighly recommend life below zero on Netflix. If my family ever ends up living off land I will now know how to do it a little bit better than I knew before watching. The best hunter, 5ft lady, chased down a running wolf and shot it from long distance. Great show! Alaska is amazing.
- arca_vorago 9y agoI don't know the particulars of the Wyoming project, but I can speak about this issue in depth from a firsthand perspective regarding the gray wolf reintroduction program that started in my tiny mountain town in Arizona in 98. First, I have to say I generally understand people wanting to preserve a species and help an ecosystem. I really do. I have seen very little good science to back up the purported reasons for the reintroduction program though. Supposed benefits, ignoring the "tourist economy", such as elk and deer grazing habit changes for waterways, have not held up, and even if they did, were miniscule benefits that could be handled in other ways. (For example, instead of hoping wolves will hunt beaver which cause damage (but also help in ways), they could increase beaver tags. Right now the White Mountain Apache reservation is having a wild horse problem. The wolves aren't nearly numerous enough to even put a dent in it. I have witnessed firsthand the kind of destruction that results in freshly minted PHD's showing up in a forest they've never been to and insisting they know better than the families that have lived on that land for 100+ years. The primary example of this for me was the large forest fires in the area. The old timer loggers were saying they should be allowed to thin the forests out, and that they should be allowing natural burns to go longer and be doing more control burns. The PHD's at the forest service insisted against this, and then the pine beetle infestation hit, and then a flame and poof... twice, more than 400k acres up in flames. This has created distrust in the locals. I also question some of the shock value statistics being thrown around to villify or negate ranchers concerns. I've heard from people that they are increasingly restricting and disallowing public grazing... so how can decreases of livestock attacks really be trusted when there aren't nearly the same amount of livestock in the first place? I haven't even mentioned how badly the actual reintroduction program was handled. They started by cage feeding pairs and releasing them as a pair. The wolves were way to reliant on being fed and way too unafraid of humans. Now they are trying to put cage born/fed pups into already wild packs... My family jokes I'm half-Apache because I spent so much time in the forest when I was younger, but now we don't let friends or family go out to half our little secret spots without being armed. It's easy to say "wolves are more afraid of you" and spout all the things that PHD told you because he read them in a book, but when you are in the forest and hear a pack across the ridge at night... it has vastly changed the atmosphere of the mountains. Before the reintro program we really only had to worry about mountain lions and the occasional bear... both of which were much more scared of humans than any gray wolf is, especially in a pack. That being said though, I knew ranchers who have had more losses from the mountain lions than from the wolves, which is one of the reasons a mountain lion hunt is tradition in the area. In the local population, this has created massive blowback, to the point that I openly hear people spreading the three S's when it comes to wolves. Shoot, shovel, and shhhhhhh. I never heard of anyone actually doing it, because the forest service put out a 50k reward for reporting such an action! The bottom line is that at every turn I have seen phd environmentalists assume they know best and end up causing blowback that bites locals in the ass, while the forest service/blm will just move that person somewhere else and they never have to deal with the consequences of their actions. The locals are tired of this kind of federal over-reach. New Mexico as I understand it currently has an injunction against the reintro program for just this reasons. I say good for them. In all my years in the forest though, I only saw one up close and personal in the wild once. It was huge, beautiful, and majestic, and I'm glad I was in a vehicle. I simply don't see the real value of their reintroduction other than to make what my grandpa would call the "hippy tree huggers" feel good. In 20 years, they barely have the pop above 100. edit: seeing lots of hate for ranchers. I honestly don't think people understand how important rachers are to the ecosystems, a thousand times more important than wolves. As for hunters, I generally have a lot of disdain for them. Locals bag one elk and share it. City-boy hunters who think they are country put on camo, sit in a stand all day and bag something mostly for the picture and the trophy, and that bothers me greatly. They also tend to have a lack of respect for the forest. Just saying, don't equate hunters or illegal hunters with the ranchers.
- diebir 9y agoWelfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West http://www.publiclandsranching.org/book.htm http://www.publiclandsranching.org/book.htm
- diebir 9y agohttps://www.eastidahonews.com/2017/03/boy-sprayed-cyanide-explosive-grace-god-im-still-alive/ https://www.eastidahonews.com/2017/03/boy-sprayed-cyanide-ex... POCATELLO — The family of a teenage boy sprayed by a cyanide explosive that killed their dog is outraged they weren’t told the device was planted near their home. M-44s are spring-activated devices that release cyanide when they are activated through upward pressure or pulling. The US Department of Agriculture uses the devices to control coyotes and other predators.
- diebir 9y agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/09/storied-alaska-wolf-pack-beloved-for-decades-has-vanished-thanks-to-hunting/?utm_term=.972849386b62 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/0... Storied Alaska wolf pack beloved for decades has vanished, thanks to hunting * FYI: if you went to Denali NP, your chances of seeing a wolf used to be 50% or so. Now... the Park says 2-3%.
- zackmorris 9y agoBorn and raised in Idaho. Dunno if anyone will read this, but many of us here are against the hunting of wolves (or any other large predator like mountain lions etc). The reason is very simple at its core - do humans know better than the natural world? The answer is clearly no, so there must be unintended consequences to hunting animals purely for sport or human constructs like competition. Without wolves, herds grow too large and overgraze streams and generally wreck ecosystems. I recognize that hunters want to succeed at finding game but humans are the top predator. We already have full control, so I find arguments that we are competing with wolves to be rather sophomoric. People just want that feeling of having total control, which is at odds with the natural world. It's a macho thing, not a pragmatic thing.